Out On The Weekend

In which we learn that Woodrow Wilson is best listened to with the sound off, and other important things.

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blog's Favourite Living Canadian)

Martin Richard, the eight-year old boy who was killed at the 2013 Boston Marathon finish line, has become the face of that senseless act of bloody mayhem over the past couple of years. In TheBoston Globe, his parents published a remarkable open letter in which they asked the federal court that is considering the proper punishment for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev not to give their child's killer a death sentence.

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I can't do proper justice to the entire letter, but I can quote a piece of it as an example of how reason can triumph even in the face of unspeakable injury, and how reason can deliver more justice than raw emotion ever will.

We understand all too well the heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed. We were there. We lived it. The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul. We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We hope our two remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring...As long as the defendant is in the spotlight, we have no choice but to live a story told on his terms, not ours. The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family.

It's Ron Johnson Day here at the shebeen, and the dimmest light in the Senate chandelier shines on, that crazy diamond. Here he is, with some wingnut radio drone, and the two of them explain how empathy is the enemy of liberty. Or something.

JOHNSON: Unfortunately, President Obama's response to an adverse decision — in other words one that actually follows the law — would be really simple. Just a one-sentence bill allowing people's subsidies to flow to federal exchanges and/or offer the governors, 'Hey, we know you got those federal exchanges. Just sign the bottom line. We'll make those established by the state.' And of course, he'll have the ads all racked up with the individuals that have benefited from Obamacare on the backs of the American taxpayer. He'll have all those examples as well so...

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WEBER: And the sad sack stories about who's dying from what and why they can't get their coverage.

Playoff hockey, there's nothing like it. The Ottawa-Montreal series already is awash in bad blood because P.K. Subban of the Canadiens broke the wrist of Ottawa star Mark Stone with an off-the-puck slash that should have cost Subban at least a couple of games, and I say that as a lifelong Habs fan. (NHL lifers are mysteriously supportive of Subban, but clearly targeting the other team's best player away from the puck is not a road the NHL wants to go down any more.) As you can see, revenge has been vowed. And this is only the first round.

Wylie came across the fossil in September 2014, while digging for marine animal bones with his father. Researchers from Southern Methodist University, who excavated the remains last week, have tentatively identified the fossil as a heavily-armored nodosaur. The specimen could be more than 100 million years old – but Wylie didn't know it at the time. "My dad told me it was a turtle," Wylie told the Dallas Morning News. "But now he's telling me it's a dinosaur."

The $466 million Dawn mission, which launched in September 2007, aims to better characterize the solar system'shttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png early days by studying Ceres and Vesta, two intact protoplanets that are the largest denizens of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The probe spent 14 months at the 330-mile-wide (530 km) Vesta in 2011 and 2012, then headed to Ceres. Mission scientists said they expect that Ceres, which is about 590 miles (950 km) wide, will be wetter than Vesta, and made of different stuff. Some researchers think Ceres may even harbor liquid water beneath its surface, perhaps making the dwarf planet capable of hosting life as we know it.

Not life as I know it. And I don't care how many flyers NASA sends me in the mail, I'm not buying a lot there.

I'll be back on Monday for what I am sure will be some HRC-related gobshitery that will make me hate the 2016 election even more than I already do. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake line, or I'm sending Ron Johnson over to your house to cheer you up.

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